Child Sex In The Holy City
By Harmony Grant
12-12-6
You may have been shocked by Ted Pike's recent expose of permission-for-pedophilia in the Babylonian тαℓмυd. He quotes passages directly from the тαℓмυd that sanction sex with boys under the age of 9 or girls under the age of 3-1/2 (See,
http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/pedophiliasecret.html Pedophilia: The тαℓмυd's Dirty Secret). Apparently, rabbis liked to molest small children a few thousand years ago.
Worse, they still like and excuse it today.
The leftist Jєωιѕн blogosphere buzzed recently with an eyewitness account from Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg of child molestation in gαy bathhouses in Jerusalem. This report has been circulated on popular Jєωιѕн blogs, including Jєωschool ("Mishegaas," Nov. 12) and failedmessiah ("For Marvin Schick: Mikva Man-on-Boy Abuse," Nov. 10).
Jєωιѕн blog Chaptzem was first to post scans of Rosenberg's eyewitness reports (in Yiddish and Hebrew). He tells of seeing 7- and 8-year-old boys sɛҳuąƖly abused in the sauna of a mikvah, a bathhouse where Orthodox Jєωs undergo ritual purification (
http://chaptzem.blogspot.com/2005/08/mikvah-expert-nuchem-rosenberg-blasts.html).
Rabbi Rosenberg, who is a world-traveling mikvah expert, expressed horror and grief at the sight. He said when he went to the religious authorities in Jerusalem they refused to act, saying the bathhouse pedophiles give them money to subsidize mikvahs.
"If this place would be in America," wrote Rosenberg, "all the participants would be in jail, and even according to the laws of the Zionist government, such a place would be closed down. But here, in the holy city of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), in beis zupnik, the mikvah remains open and everything is permissible."
Most Jєωιѕн readers who commented on the failedmessiah post accept the authority of Rosenberg's account. One wrote, "While what he writes seems extreme, it matches what many abuse victims claim."
While dredging the web to research this topic, I stumbled on dozens of comments and even entire blogs written by Orthodox Jєωs about childhood sɛҳuąƖ abuse.
In the eighties, Orthodox Rabbi Ephraim Byrks was accused of sɛҳuąƖly molesting women, boys, and girls in Canada. He was sheltered and defended by his Orthodox community in Winnipeg, and in 1990 he accepted a position as principal of a Jєωιѕн day school in Montreal and from there went to New York and started another Torah school.
In 1993, one of Byrks' victims, 17-year-old Daniel Levin, killed himself. After a docuмentary (Unorthodox Conduct, 2004, Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) was produced about the ѕυιcιdє, the child-molesting rabbi was forced out of work in the education field.
But within two years, Byrks was back as principal of a Russian elementary boys' yeshiva in Brooklyn, and later started another тαℓмυd boys' school in Queens. In 2001, the New York Post published an article by Douglas Montero exposing Byrks as a child molester ("Queens Yeshiva Boss is a Molester: Boy's Mom," March 31, 2001). Yet "Once again," says the Jєωιѕн Coalition Against sɛҳuąƖ Abuse/Assault (JCASA), "there wasn't a tremendous reaction within the Rabbinical or Jєωιѕн community."
Today, Byrks lives as a private citizen and the cases against him remain open, according to JCASA. For a quarter of a century, he was involved in the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) and he currently serves on the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, a committee responsible for important decisions for the Jєωιѕн community.
Is it possible that Orthodox rabbis like Byrks excuse their abuse of children with verses from the тαℓмυd? It's more than possible; it's almost a certainty.
One Jєωιѕн blogger (
http://dovbear.blogspot.com/2006/11/mail-about-mikvaos.html) posted an email that attests, "I personally know of many many boys who were molested in mikva'os.
I am in close contact with an ex-chassidishe young adult who, over time, was raped by at least 10 men; among them, rebbeim, often in mikvaos."
JCASA also reports on another rabbi, Moshe Eiseman, who was first credibly accused of child molestation 15 years ago yet remains an authority in the Orthodox community in Philadelphia ("Call to Action," Sept. 3, 2006).
The allegations have been confirmed with numerous victims, reports the Awareness Center. Yet Eiseman remains employed by Ner Israel (a prominent тαℓмυd school in Baltimore) and lives on their campus with access to children.
None of the Jєωιѕн bloggers express approval or acceptance for rabbis who rape kids. Most express horror and call for these men to be reported to the authorities. These writers represent the larger Jєωιѕн community which is led like sheep by evil leaders. Most Jєωs don't even know that their own sacred тαℓмυd sanctions child abuse.
But it does. Rabbinic Judaism is an evil vine dripping with poisonous fruit, "full of all uncleanness," as Jesus said. And today-in the forms of Zionism, leftist Jєωιѕн activism, and тαℓмυdic Judaism-it entangles the lives of 14 million Jєωs, 1.3 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians.
Today, evangelical Christians donate millions per year to the state of Israel-most of which is entrusted to the care of rabbinic authorities. Would Christians give so generously if they knew how untrustworthy are the recipients of their gifts? Of course not.
But their ignorance is not easily excused. Both evangelicals and Jєωs are notorious for closing their minds to the slightest criticism of Jєωιѕн leadership-a willful blindness that has enabled Jєωιѕн leaders to attain tremendous power. For such partiality, the church will be held accountable, both here and in the hereafter. We will have to answer to God if we subsidize Jerusalem mikvahs where small boys are raped, instead of preaching the sin-reproving gospel that could save Jєωιѕн souls.
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Harmony Grant is a staff writer for the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog group.